He's not being picked as a batsman. He's the 13th ranked ODI bowler in the world and has taken 31 wicket @ 23 in the last couple of years. Fair enough, he's at the end of his career, has declined a bit, and isn't far away from retiring, but have you looked at the statistics of the other bowlers in the team?

Why is so far up the batting order. Take last night for example. Justify that.

Originally Posted by HeathDavisSpeed

I got great enjoyment in going to the game and shouting "WHY THE **** ISN'T THIS GAME BEING PLAYED AT THE BASIN?!>!?!?" to reasonably significant cheers from the sparse crowd

Proudly against the bring back Bennett movement since he is injury prone and won't last 5 days.

That's your opinion and I don't entirely disagree. It still has no relevance to his selection in the team though, so it's an irrelevant point.

I have no opposition to him being in the team if it is for bowling alone that he is selected. However I want him to be around #9 in the batting line up and never getting promotions. So that is why I made my point and hence its relevance. I think you had some valid points in pointing out his bowling value.

I have no opposition to him being in the team if it is for bowling alone that he is selected. However I want him to be around #9 in the batting line up and never getting promotions. So that is why I made my point and hence its relevance. I think you had some valid points in pointing out his bowling value.

Yeah, don't disagree. It just pushes players like Williamson, who are already out of position, even further down the order.

New Zealand have a 18% winning percentage against proper countries with Nathan McCullum in the team. Is there a more useless cricketer going around playing in a top eight team?

Our winning percentage against proper countries is around 18 percent full stop. If you want to state a case for dropping Nathan, his own numbers would be more pertinent. I'd be interested as to which slow bowlers you'd be swapping in for him, also.

And yeah, Oram probably justifies his place with the ball. But he doesn't justify batting above even Southee.

Our limited overs side is getting a similar complexion to our test side in that none of the bowlers are any good with the bat. N McCullum is an exception and his bowling is at least adequate, so he deserves to be in the side.

Southee is one bowler who imo we should have batting for us a lot more often in limited overs because he really can be very destructive. Sure a lot of his innings will be 0(1) or 6(2) or 12(4) but for the low price of his wicket there's a lot of potential reward. He barely batted in the T20 WC as we were so consumed by conserving wickets. I thought that was a mistake.

We are not going to get many runs out of the three that play of Boult, Hira, Mills or Oram.

Yeah an actuary would probably say it's damn smart policy to use Southee much more often. An 18(10) being seen as not worth the intangible yaaa! damage to the BLACKCAPS brand, such as it is.

Would be great to somehow prove whether Doull's correct about Oram losing his ballstriking simply due to loss of nerve and fear of the ball. Seems sad that time out of the game injured and studying made him realise he didn't actually like touring the world playing cricket, T20 and NZC contract money keeps just getting him out the door to primarily bowl, something he's always felt obliged to do rather than having any childhood love for it.

Maybe those 2007-08 stats jumping off the page really did coincide with Aussie journalists making the desire more primal for him by dubbing him the poor man's Cairns. Without that he reverts to Clark Kent; a containment-based ODI bowler and a tepid horn-rimmed glasses pundit on various Sky shows.

Don't squander the gold of your days making a shrine of cricket videos, trying to improve the hopeless failure, giving your life away to the Blockys, the Devciches and the Weerasundaras! Surrender your devout little cricketing heart to the inured agribusinessman.

Just to express my bitterness, today is when we should be starting the first test of three vs Sri Lanka, instead of two more useless bloody ODIs. Yep, still bitter. At least there's the Gabba test to look forward to.

Just to express my bitterness, today is when we should be starting the first test of three vs Sri Lanka, instead of two more useless bloody ODIs. Yep, still bitter. At least there's the Gabba test to look forward to.

Probably looking forward to Australia vs South Africa more than our own test series actually.

There's no doubt (barring rain) it'll be a better match from a neutral perspective - get to watch Steynje and there'll be a big crowd and the pitch will probably be waaaaay better. Still wanna watch our guys too though